Telephone answering machines are well known. Answering machines typically answer an incoming telephone call upon a predetermined number of rings on a telephone line that the answering machine is connected to. After so many rings have occurred the machine will go "off-hook" answering the incoming call. A pre-recorded message is played to the caller, at the conclusion of which the caller may leave a message that is recorded on either a magnetic tape or stored in an electronic memory device. Messages left on the machine can be replayed at a later time. Many prior art answering machines also include the ability to replay or retrieve messages remotely by entering one or more keystrokes into a telephone placing a call that the machine has answered.
Prior art answering machines treat all incoming calls alike. In many instances and for a variety of reasons, it might be desirable to have an answering machine not answer an incoming call, either from a particular calling party or at a particular time. Similarly, it might be desirable to have a calling party get a particular announcement message customized for that particular caller. It might also be preferable or desirable to segregate messages from one or more parties from the others, in part, to expedite the review thereof.
An answering machine or methodology by which calls could be selectively responded to on the basis of the calling party would be an improvement over the prior art. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method and apparatus to selectively answer incoming telephone calls, selectively play an announcement on the basis of the calling party's identity, and to record messages from calling parties based in part on the identity of that calling party.